Mid-Campaign Update

Hi, everyone! With just a little over 1 week left in the campaign, I thought it would be nice to update you all on where the game is at and some future plans, since there is some exciting news coming out soon now that we’ve reached full funding! Did you know the last devlog was almost three months ago? *cries* A lot has happened since the last devlog, what with the demo release and Kickstarter, so it’s nice to be back to something that feels natural and more familiar to me <3 

Kickstarter Campaign

First, since the Kickstarter hasn't ended yet, I'd like to highlight some goals before the campaign ends! We are creeping up on our first stretch goal, which is an original OST by Peter Reid Jones of Scarlet Moon.  We are less than $500 away, so we are so close to that stretch goal as well as two of our milestone goals ($15,000 funding and less than 20 backers away from 300)! 

I'm realizing now that I haven't actually shown the milestone goal images on itch.io. For those who only follow me on here, these are the milestone goal images that have been released so far, in honor of hitting $1,000, $6,000, 200 backers, and full funding:

$1,000: Kayn letting us see how they get ready for the day

$6,000: Kuna'a letting us play dress-up with them. Twitter decided to put them in a dress shirt and harness (and possibly what could pass as an AOT cosplay??)

200 Backers: We gave Fenir a flower to celebrate the Kickstarter campaign and this milestone!

Full Funding ($12,000): Druk was busy when we came to celebrate him and had just gotten off of training. He says thank you for the support, though! 

LI Stretch Goal Reveals

We also recently revealed the LIs for our two additional LI stretch goals: Senja and Kilum. Here they are, pictured below, and you can check out their voices on our Twitter.

A lot of people have mentioned wanting to reach the LI goals as well as the VA goals, and I am right there with you all! Even if they may seem a little ways off, each little bit helps, and if we make enough progress, towards them, it's much easier to include them in the final game (even if we don't reach the stretch goals now) since a lot of funding is already there to help support. If you'd like to help out even more to reach these goals, I'd recommend sharing the campaign with your friends or on social media so as many people can see the campaign and support as possible <3

Development Updates

With full funding, I can now continue development of the full game and look for a writer/editor and BG artist! I don't have the application information for the writer/editor and BG artist written yet, but be on the lookout sometime after the Kickstarter ends for those! If you've been interested in working on the project, these will both be paid positions and a chance to join my (one-person) team :)

Between the Kickstarter and demo release, I haven't been able to fully work on Alaris like I'm used to, which honestly kills me since I started the game as a hobby. So not being able to engage with my hobby has left me feeling a lot more burnt out than usual. I'm not a marketer (or a particularly active social media person), so having to do marketing for about 2-3 months straight has been... painful.

I've also been studying for my "comprehensive exams" for PhD school, meaning it's my end-all-be-all exam (similar to the Bar exam for lawyers), which are coincidentally the same week as the Kickstarter ends, ha <\3. I needed to do something to take my mind off the Kickstarter and my huge exam, so I ended up drawing a CG I'd had in mind for Kayn for a while now.

This is just a sketch and snippet of the CG, but if you’d like to see the full (almost fully rendered) version, it is available in our Kickstarter-exclusive update that just went out today! If you haven’t backed yet, please consider doing so to get access to this (and future) exclusive update, and to support the game and help us reach some stretch goals <3

I’m currently considering reworking how I do devlogs moving forward. Before, I was very open in the ones posted to itch.io and Tumblr because it was for demo content, which is free. Because now there are Kickstarters who have paid for exclusive content, and the final game will have a price tag, I want to be more cautious of the content I’m posting on Tumblr/itch.io since it wouldn’t be fair to give everyone the same access to content that some people are paying for. I will still be posting to itch.io and Tumblr since I know there are people who enjoy the devlogs and maybe don’t have the means to pay for the content. But I do have to warn you all that it will be in a more limited capacity so I’m not leaking paid-for content to everyone. I hope you all can understand <3

Again, there’s only a little over one week left in the Kickstarter, so if there’s any way you all would like to support, it would be extremely appreciated!

P.S. I know some of you have mentioned help with the game (like it won't open for some reason). I have been swamped with the Kickstarter and studying for my exams, but as soon as everything is over, I promise to return to the development side at a fuller capacity and help out in any ways I can. Thank you for being patient with me, and for those who have left such stellar reviews, thank you so much <3